


I sing, you shout

by zinabug



Series: we're just a million miles from home [4]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff, Baking, Carmilla's A+ parenting, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jonny's out of character don't @ me, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23640691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinabug/pseuds/zinabug
Summary: I do yet more Jonny & Nastya angst and sibling bonding. there's actually happy bits in here.title from silhouettes by of monsters and men
Relationships: Dr Carmilla & Jonny d'Ville, Dr Carmilla & Nastya Rasputina, Jonny d'Ville & Nastya Rasputina
Series: we're just a million miles from home [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685929
Comments: 28
Kudos: 184





	I sing, you shout

Manners were drilled into him as a boy. 

Be polite to elders, elbows off the table, hats off indoors, chew with your mouth closed. Protect kids and girls and those who can’t protect themselves. 

It’s not like he cared about the manners anymore, but they had been drilled into him to the point where they were second nature. 

_Protect kids and girls and those who can’t protect themselves._

He had never realized just how much that rule was ingrained into him until he had seen Nastya, brought back from death, cold and fragile, unconscious in the doc’s lab. He needed to keep her safe. The surge of emotions he had felt, picking up her limp form and carrying it to her new room as Carmilla walked alongside him, was staggering. He wanted to take this kid and run away, far away, beyond Carmilla’s reach, and keep her safe. 

That was impossible. 

He settled for taking bullets for her, over and over, letting himself be found and hurt, doing it for her. It was better if she never knew, he decided, mending some holes in his old coat before giving it to her. She would start doing it for him, and then they would just both be throwing themselves in the fire to save the other. 

She has to look after him. 

A princess protects her people, even if “her people” is an immortal former cowboy wearing six belts at once and a starship.

Jonny was angry and strange and gentle, and he had so much weight on him. He was careful of himself around her, but not in the way everyone was careful around her in the palace. She wasn’t made of glass anymore, or if she was the glass was cracked. 

She wasn’t a princess anymore, but that didn’t stop the lessons she had learned, didn’t stop her delicate manners and careful way of speaking and the drilled in rule to _protect her people_. 

She knew he took the worst of it to keep her safe, and felt horribly guilty about continuing to run when he would stop, telling her to keep going. It was too familiar. 

_I’ll hold them off._

She was going to look after him the best she could, showing him the best places to hide and comforting him the best she could. He did so much more for her and she didn’t think she could ever repay him. 

“We need to make a deal.” Jonny had Nastya pulled onto his lap to try and stop the shivering. She had been shaking violently since Carmilla’s last experiment. He had helped engineer the pain she was in. He’d been forced to. 

“W-what k-kind of a-a deal?” she asked, somehow shrinking smaller into herself. She was wearing his coat over her own, but it didn’t seem to be doing much. Her lips were tinged blue and the way her breath wheezed was worrying him. 

“For when stuff like this happens. When one of us is forced to help hurt the other.” 

She nodded slowly, eyes dull. “It’s n-not your-r fault.” 

But it was. It was his fault he didn’t keep her safe, didn’t offer himself or help her hide in time… 

“S-stop bl-blaming yourself.” she smiled at him. “I-I’d sm-smack you but I can’t.”

He sighed. “I promise I won’t blame you if she makes you hurt me and I’ll do everything I can to help it hurt less after.” 

“I-I promise too.” 

* * *

Time of day and night is hard to keep track of in space, but it felt like the middle of the night when Jonny opened the door to the kitchen, empty and shining in the dim light. Carmilla was in her lab, very focused on something that smelled like melting rubber. He hoped that would keep her busy.

_ “Nastya, Do you know how to cook?”  _

_ “No, I don’t.”  _

_ “Well, it’s time you learned.”  _

Not like Jonny really knew how to cook either. He watched his mother cook, she showed him basics, he could make a shitty loaf of bread and some trail food. Nastya might know lots of things about the stars and history and big words about science he didn’t really understand, but she didn’t know shit about real life. 

He was going to teach her, how to cook and sew -not just fancy embroidery stitches- and clean and fix things and fire a gun, best he could. He knew his best wasn’t very good but it was all he had. 

Nastya opened one of the kitchen cabinets. It was empty. “Do we even have any food?” she asked. 

“Possibly.” Jonny opened the pantry. “We have like freeze dried shit that probably expired and normally basic ingredients, if I can find them at least.” 

“Like what basic ingredients?” Nastya opened a cabinet under the sink. “There’s a thing of salt under here.” 

“Take that out and put it on the table.” Jonny started opening bins. They always had yeast, Carmilla bought an ungodly amount of it for experimentation reasons and didn’t use most of it. 

“Why was that under the sink?” Nastya asked, opening a drawer. 

“Carmilla puts things in strange places sometimes. She might be hiding them, I don’t know.” Jonny found half a bag of flour under an upside down bin. “This is from a while ago. When I made you bread. She moved it.” 

“What else do we need?” Nastya walked into the pantry with him. He handed her the flour. 

“Oil and water.” he remembered his mother’s tattered recipe box, stained and worn cards that he wasn’t allowed to touch save for when she needed one of them and she sent him to fetch it. The new recipe was tucked into his pocket, a piece of paper hurriedly copied from a computer screen. It wasn’t the same. 

Nastya continued opening drawers and cabinets. She was wearing a black button up that used to be his and had been about three sizes too big. It fit her annoyingly well compared to him. 

He found the oil, behind a few empty containers shoved in the corner of the pantry. It was full and the container was sealed. 

“I found oil!” He called. Nastya was sitting on the counter with a mixing bowl in her lap, watching the yeast. He has set it up before they properly started looking for things. 

“That’s good!” She said back, hoping off the counter. “Now what?” 

He set it down on the table. “Do you have a measuring cup?” 

“I have a couple.” She handed him a glass one that went a little over a cup, and two third of a cup ones, both broken. “Carmilla might have taken the rest of them.” 

“Most likely.” He took the glass one. “Just put those ones in the trash thing. Measuring spoons?” 

“Lots of those, very tidy all in a drawer.” 

Jonny nodded. He decided he’d rather not know why carmilla did most of the things she did and focused on measuring out oil while Nastya, holding a set of measuring spoons, watched with interest. 

“You’ve really never cooked anything before, have you?” He asked. 

“I wasn’t allowed.” He reached for the salt. “Can I add that?” 

He took the measuring spoon from her hand and handed her the correct one. “Two of those.” 

She seemed to be holding her breath as she measured, getting it as perfect as she could. 

He was a little annoyed and impatient at her extreme care. They had a limited time, though he couldn’t say for the life of him what the time was. It was also one of the funniest things he’s seen in awhile. 

“It won’t blow up if you measure it wrong.” He reminded her. 

She dumped the spoonful of salt in the bowl and called him a rude name in cybernian. 

“I know! You get to add the yeast too!” He did his best to sound like he was talking to a small child, which earned him a kick in the shin that cracked bone. 

“Why the fuck did I give you those boots?” He asked from his new position lying on the floor, feeling the bone heal. 

“Because I didn’t have any good ones so you gave me these.” She raised her steel toed, booted foot over his face. 

He sat up. “How about we don’t do that.” 

She moved the boot away from his face, but continued to poke him in the side with it. He sat there and glared at her until his leg healed. 

“So, do you want to add the yeast?” He asked.

She stared at him for a long minute before nodding. 

“Just dump it in and mix all that up.” His leg was taking an annoyingly long time to properly heal. He decided he didn’t care enough to take the time and pulled himself up, leaning on the counter while Nastya carefully mixed the ingredients in the bowl. 

“That’s good. Add flour now.” he said.

She picked up the bag. “How much?” 

“Two and a half cups.” 

He watched as she continued her overly careful measurements. He decided it was more funny then annoying and left her to it. She was frowning seriously at the flour as she carefully evened out the top of the measuring cup. 

“Right.” he said, as she added the last bit after what felt like forever. “Wash your hands.” he limped his way to the sink and turned on the water. 

“What for?” she asked, joining him. 

“You have to knead the bread, and clean hands is important for that.” he returned to the bowl and put his hands in, ignoring Nastya’s “what-” as he did so. 

He could have easily used a spoon, Or a mixer, but he decided that mixing it with his hands was probably more fun. It was Nastya’s turn to watch, although she was a lot more interested then he had been as the mix formed into dough and he started properly kneading it. 

There was a clock on the stove to time it. It was probably wrong, like he cared, he could use it to time the bread. 

“How long do you have to do that for?” Nastya asked. 

“Fifteen minutes.” he said. “You want to give it a try?” 

She shrugged, then nodded, and he moved aside to let her try. 

“Don’t worry about getting it wrong, there isn’t a wrong way.” he said. “Just pummel the living daylights out of it.” 

He watched the clock while she quietly kneaded the dough. There was a surprising amount of anger in her movements and posture. He supposed that using it to knead bread was a noble pursuit and went looking for a towel to cover the bowl while the bread rose. 

Nastya looked like she very much wanted to go check on the bread. Jonny has stopped her after the first four times, and was trying to get her to help him write violin music. 

“There’s still twenty minutes left.” he said. “Come on, help me with this, I don’t know how to write violin.” 

“I should teach you.” she said, taking the paper from him. “We need more instruments, there’s only so much you can do with a violin and harmonica.” 

“Carmilla plays most instruments.” Jonny said. “We don’t need any more people.” 

Nastya nodded. “I mean, we could learn more instruments. We have time.” 

“Too much time.” Jonny said, sharper then he intended. 

Nastya nodded. 

“And yet you can’t wait 45 minutes for bread to rise.” he said, smiling slightly. 

She sighed. 

“You can check on it again,” he added. 

She stayed still for a couple more minutes, glaring at him, before she went to check on the bread. 

“It’s risen a lot. What next? Do we just bake it?” 

“Well,” he drew out the word a lot longer than even unnecessary. “We knead and let it rise again.” 

Nastya visibly deflated. 

“Or we can just bake it. Might not be quite as good, but if you’re that impatient-” 

“No, that’s fine.” she poked the bread with her finger and froze. “Jonny? Is it supposed to do this?” 

“Do what.” he got up to go look. 

“Deflate.” 

“Yes, just knead it again and make it into a loaf shape.” he sighed. 

“Are you  _ sure _ it’s supposed to?” she asked, pressing her whole hand into the center of the dough lump. 

“I’m sure.” he sighed again. 

She put the loaf shaped dough in the bowl and covered it again. 

“How long this time?” she asked. 

“Half an hour, give or take. Come sit here.” 

They were only silent for a minute or so. Jonny hated silence with a burning passion he couldn’t fully explain, and had to fill it with something, even if that was just humming or tapping his fingers. 

“The aurora.” he said abruptly. “You talk about it like it’s alive.” Carmailla had said it was alive, but it had never seemed alive to him. 

Nastya looked up. “She is!” 

“She.” Jonny wasn’t going to judge based on pronouns but he still wasn’t really sure if a starship could be sentient and have a gender. 

“Yes, she. She told me so.” 

“ _ Told  _ you?” 

“Are you just going to repeat everything I say?” Nastya sighed. “She talks, through the humming of the engine and the lights and so much more.” 

Jonny nodded, in that  _ I don’t really understand/agree with you anymore but okay  _ way. 

Nastya sighed again. “You just don’t listen.” 

“I listen!” He tried but he hated the quiet of his own thoughts too much to do it properly. 

“Suuure.” Nastya kicked him in the leg again, lightly with the back of her boot. “You can’t be quiet long enough to listen. Come on, try” 

He nodded, looking at the floor. Quiet means thinking and that’s best to avoid, because then you wind up with too many emotions and then you shoot yourself in the head to deal with them. 

He pulled out his harmonica from his pocket and started playing a little louder than necessary as a tired and amused Nastya looked on. 

He played harmonica for fifteen minutes before both of them were done with it and decided to put the bread in the oven. 

“And now we wait more?” Nastya asked. 

“Now we wait more.” he sighed. “You probably don’t want me to keep playing harmonica.” 

“No.” Nastya’s tone was so incredibly distanful he almost dropped his harmonica. He didn’t, and started playing again for a few more minutes until Nastya statched it from him and put it on the top cabinet shelf, out of his reach. He gave her both middle fingers in response and settled for trying to get her to help him write violin music while she watched the bread through the oven door. 

When the timer went off, he pulled it out, ignoring the burns on his hands, and set it on top of the oven. 

“Now we wait for it to cool!” he said, only joking a little. 

Nastya closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “No.” 

He shrugged and grabbed one of the knives from the safe block. They had two knife blocks, one labeled “more food safe” and the other “probably dangerous” in Carmilla’s handwriting. 

“Have your bread.” he chopped off a thick slice and tossed it to her. She just managed to catch it, scrambling to catch it and almost missing. “Congrats.” 

She frowned at him. “You didn’t have to throw it.” 

“Yes, I did.” He cut another slice and took a bite. It was actually pretty good, better than the bread he had made by himself, although he wouldn’t admit that for anything. “There, you cooked something.” 

Nastya looked down at the bread in her hands, entranced. She had created it with her hands, and the simple slice of plain bread was the best thing she had ever tasted. 


End file.
